


Even Angels Suffer The Past.

by Yurutono



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/F, and angela gets very sad., moira is the QUEEN of drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-07 02:45:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14071221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yurutono/pseuds/Yurutono
Summary: Moira finally catches up to Angela.





	Even Angels Suffer The Past.

**Author's Note:**

> first time writing out of fandom (published anyway), have my angst shite

Angela frowned when she was called up to the front. She hated being there, not just because of the shouting, the gunfire; the awful atmosphere of death. But because she knew the aftermath. From the battles of the past, to the wars of the present, no matter the weaponry, it always ended in the worst kind of bloodshed.

Warfare alienated people. Prevented them from seeing other people as just that: people. But she hoped that if she herself were to have the opportunity to heal someone of even the opposing side, she would take it. But Talon.

Talon would leave anyone they deemed unworthy to die. Perhaps even their own. She couldn’t understand anything so cruel, or why anyone at all would defect or even be in favour with such a side. But the world was an awful place, so she had to take whatever sides she could to put whatever little good she actually could, even if in dire circumstances.

But Angela had been stupid. In an attempt to save a man who flew the colours of neither Overwatch or Talon, she had trapped herself in a room with the notorious Moira O’Deorain.

“Moira-” Angela nearly choked on her name. She knew that a person like Moira would never stop her work, no matter what setbacks were put in her path.

“This is how you fancy yourself now? The angel of the battlefield?”

Moira ignored Angela’s shock, her left hand on her hip as her gaze went to the man who Angela’s mind had slipped from.

“Let’s make this a one on one. Shall we?” Moira drew her right hand up, her sleeve draping down to her elbow and revealing the, in Angela’s opinion, hideous genetic modifications.

“What have you done to yourself?” Angela asked, her eyes widening.

“We always were too different for each other,” Moira shook her head, her fingers clawing as a purple mist flicked up from a gauntlet on her hand, “You’re scared of progress.”

“This isn’t the right kind of progress, Moira.”

“You no longer have the right to call me that,” Moira growled, casting her hand towards the half-dead man, “You lost that right when you condemned me, Ziegler.”

Angela opened her mouth to argue, but found her voice lost as she watched the life drain out of the eyes in front of her, managing a few final chokes of pain. Immediately, Angela dropped to her knees beside him, pressing two fingers against his neck. Gone.

“I had to condemn your research… It wasn’t right,” Angela looked up to meet the cold gaze on her, “And besides, there was pressure on me to do so anyway.”

“So you caved to your overlords and let yourself be puppeted,” Moira replied in disgust, “ _Mo Dhia_ Ziegler, you have an incredible mind, but you could never get over the hurdle of ethics. I would’ve gladly welcomed your help.”

“You know I never would’ve followed you,” Angela stood herself up, taking a somewhat shaky step towards her, “We had methods that were too different.”

Angela wondered partially how it had come to this. To see Moira in front of her now was both a dream and a nightmare. Her hand was more forced than she would ethically admit into condemning Moira’s work and Angela knew that if she were to ever come face to face with Moira again, their relationship would have soured.

“Moira-” Angela flinched away when noticed Moira’s expression flicker in annoyance, “Please. I have patients to attend to, the fighting could get worse; I need to-” 

Angela turned to leave, hurrying out her excuses. If she could just get door. But Moira had other ideas, it seemed, when she felt a hand grip her arm and sharp nails puncturing her skin, “You seem to like being told your place,” Moira scowled, “So I’m telling you to stay here. Are we clear?”

“... Perfectly,” Angela hissed, turning away from the blood she knew was dripping down her arm and back to Moira.

“So,” Moira let go of Angela for the time being, inspecting her bloodied fingernails, “This is what you’ve been working on?” She gestured to the staff.

“Correct,” Angela mumbled, hefting her Caduceus staff in one hand. Moira grabbed it from her, making Angela cringe at the blood she carelessly smeared on it and bringing her own attention to the dull sting on her arm. Granted, it wasn’t bleeding in a way that was life threatening, but it would made a mess of her clothes if she left it for too long.

“What did you call it?” Moira asked, tapping the needle.

“The Caduceus Staff.”

“Ziegler...” Moira scoffed, her face contorting in disgust, “I thought you were better than a God complex. Greek mythology...” She grumbled under her breath

“Modifying genetics and thinking it’s your place to do so seems the definition of a God complex to me.” Angela shot back, growing slightly more confident.

“If we were not meant to advance and modify genetics, then nature quite simply wouldn’t let us do so. Yet here we are,” Moira shrugged, tossing the staff aside as though it were a mere toy, “You know I’m beyond shame about my research. I’m finished with feeling shame brought upon me by those who are limited in their vision.”

“There are boundaries that we are not meant to break…” Angela shook her head.

“That’s awfully rich coming from you. Tell me - did you or did you not help a boy cheat certain death with the assistance of cybernetics? Where nature would’ve taken its course, you meddled,” Moira accusingly jabbing a finger in Angela’s direction, “You altered; you changed the building blocks of a person’s body and you have the _audacity_ to be critical of my experiments?!”

Angela faltered for just a moment and Moira looked as though she was about to circle in for the kill, like a shark who had smelled blood in the water, “That was different-”

“It’s always different,” Moira rolled her eyes, her voice lowering from her accusatory tone, “When it’s you, isn’t it Ziegler? I know how the boy felt. Little Shimada, running around in a cyborg shell that he hated, unsure of the point where man becomes machine, or machine becomes man. When I ran cybernetic checkups in Blackwatch, he was closed off, but sometimes squeezed social interaction out of himself.”

“Genji came to terms with himself eventually now,” Angela frowned, “But I know it was tough on him.”

“You saved his life, with cutting edge research, no matter the cost of the humanity within him,” Moira turned her head away, as if contemplating, “And yet were so… Critical of me. Granted, I’m clearer cut in what I do, but if you can’t see the parallels between us, then you are a fool.”

“I’m not here to argue with you, O’Deorain. I don’t want to be here at all.” 

“Finally facing a scientific tribunal? I find it laughable that my paper was condemned, but no one decided to criticise your little omnic human mongrel.” Moira laughed, a hand on her chest as she stepped closer, “Answer me something. Why haven’t you shot me yet? At the very least, at me?”

Angela’s blood ran cold, reflexively glancing down at her pistol.

_She was a conscientious objector,_ she wanted to say, _she was a pacifist,_ she wanted to say.

She swallowed when she knew she couldn’t lie to Moira. Moira knew the truth, the pure truth. 

“You know why, Moira,” Angela replied, her voice wavering, threatening to break, “You know exactly why.”

Moira’s expression remained stony, as she reached into Angela’s holster and pulled the pistol out, inspecting it for just a second, “Say it. I want to hear you say it.” She said sternly, not bringing her gaze up to Angela.

“Why?” Angela breathed, letting out a humourless laugh, “What are you going to do to me if I don’t?”

“What I’m going to do to you?” Moira raised an eyebrow, before bringing the pistol underneath her chin, pressing it to her skin and turning her attention back to Angela, “That all depends.” She drawled, watching with masked amusement as Angela looked on in shock.

“Moira-”

“I told you not to call me that. You best follow my instructions.”

“Moi- O’Deorain, you can’t possibly be considering that,” Angela said, daring to take a step forward. But Moira remade the distance between them with a step back.

“I consider everything before I do it, Ziegler.”

Angela was about to protest some more, knowing that Moira wasn’t possibly considering ending her own life over something as paltry as this and in a manner such as that, she saw her life as too great, her mind too valuable to lose, but the moment Angela saw Moira’s trigger finger flex ever so slightly-

_“Because I still love you-!”_

Angela swallowed, slightly relieved to see that out of the corner of her eye, Moira’s finger was no longer twitching to pull the trigger.

“ _Gottverdammt_ Moira O’Deorain… I still love you,” She nearly spat, “Is that what you wanted me to say?” Angela continued, glaring at Moira and going red in the face as she felt a few tears well up.

Moira let out a short chuckle, throwing the pistol down beside the staff, stepping closer to Angela, who only flinched away and let the tears spill over at losing herself so easily over someone she really shouldn’t have feelings for anymore.

“I wanted to know how much I could twist the blade,” Moira replied unamusedly, “How much this would hurt you,” She hissed, “And I have my answer.”

“Moira, what-”

Angela felt a stinging pain across her cheek, stumbling back as Moira clenched her right hand into a fist, “ _Shut up!_ After everything that’s happened, you can at least listen!”

Angela held her hand up to the numb, throbbing pain on her cheek, sending a glare at Moira, even if she knew it didn’t affect her at all. She had rarely seen Moira angry at all and now it felt so deep seated, that such a resentment for her had built up within her. She kept her mouth shut. Angela stood, quiet, in front of the only woman she had ever loved and the only one who had ever loved her.

“It’s over, Ziegler,” Moira began, now much calmer, “Everything we had is dead. I understand that my departure was sudden, but you never even cared to look.”

Angela’s expression twitched; _that wasn’t true_ , she wanted to say. But the look Moira gave her told her that she could have a paltry input at the end if she was so adamant about it. She felt her sadness had been a long time coming, that eventually Moira would catch up with her and at the very least demand answers or a discussion.

“You’re a hypocrite. Acting like my research wasn’t right and altering the body of a boy. Not that I disapprove of your work, of course... But regardless, you’re selfish. And you’re not the woman I knew.” Moira frowned, turning her gaze to the floor, “I don’t love you anymore and we could never make it work again. I’m closing our book, once and for all, because you left it so open ended.”

“I tried to look for you,” Angela replied, her voice wavering as she fought against the cold that was enveloping her heart, “But I was being watched. I couldn’t open up communications without being caught; Overwatch knew about our relationship.”

“Whatever the case,” Moira sighed, “We’re too different. The only way we could ever work again is if we were to never talk about our research, but that is impossible for minds such as ours. This is why I brought you here. Angela, this is goodbye.”

Angela wanted to say that she didn’t care. That she wished Moira the best of luck in the future. That she didn’t love Moira either. But whatever she was going to say choked in her throat and she felt what must’ve been like a dagger through the heart. This room might as well have been a torture chamber, one made personally for Angela.

By the time she had looked up, or made a slight mental recovery, Moira had disappeared. Leaving her for good. Broken, Angela stayed stood beside the body, before her body’s exhaustion finally caught up with her, making her hiss and clutch the wounds on her arm. She sank to her knees and however pathetic she might have felt in that moment, she closed her eyes and began to sob.

She didn’t know how long she was there for, sobbing in a room with a drained corpse. But Moira wasn’t coming back, no matter how many tears shed and how many dried.

~

Even though Moira had been diligently working through the tail end of the battle, she had been distracted all throughout. She thought that seeing the pain on Angela’s face would be satisfying, to tear apart her feelings as Angela had indirectly done to her. She thought her still freshly open wounds would at least be cauterised shut.

By the time Moira had realised that she was only hurting herself further, it was too late to ask for any kind of rewind, or apologise for anything she had said. She was stubborn and she definitely didn’t want to admit to Angela that she had been wrong. Moira had her pride and she would be damned if she would let something as trifling as this get in the way of her life; her research. She should be happy that such a chapter of her life was coming to an end.

Finding that she was the opposite, Moira felt it would be best to submerge herself in the second love of her life: work. Shoving open a door in the HQ, she growled, “Sombra, if you come into my laboratory whilst I’m working, I will personally dismember you and sew your head onto an abnormally large rat.”

Sombra, busy minding her own business (she pretended), placed her tablet down on her lap and shrugged her shoulders, “Yeah, whatever… No need to threaten.”

“Well you like to snoop…” Moira grumbled to herself, disappearing into her laboratory. The moment she felt in safety, she rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger with an exaggerating groan.

Resorting to chuntering to herself in Irish, she tried to busy herself with… Whatever she was working on next. Her mind was in an entirely different place, unfortunately, as her head screamed at her that she had, as there was no better way to put it, royally fucked up. Moira had been in pits before, beating herself up, but this felt like the one she wouldn’t be able to haul herself out of.

She had bid goodbye to Angela for good. She had lied about no longer loving her.

_“In ainm Dhia, O’Deorain!”_ Moira yelled, her hand tightening over the neck of a conical flask, before pitching it at a wall. Ignoring the shatter that followed, placing both hands on the worktop in front of her, “Out of everything you can do, the thing that you can’t hurts the most...”

There was a knock on her door, followed by it opening just a peek, Sombra’s head appearing in the doorway with a slightly annoyed frown, “What the hell are you up to in here?”

“Get out, Sombra,” She said, managing a softer, but cautionary tone, her hand veering dangerously close to another flask, “Or I genuinely will make good on my promise.”

“Alright, but…” Sombra’s eyes flicked down to the next flask Moira was reaching for, “Yeah, you know what, I won’t tell Gabe…”

“You like secrets Sombra,” Moira drawled, “Consider this our little one you can blackmail me with later. Right now, I don’t particularly care.”

Sombra looked as though she was about to say something more, but instead, silently shut the door and stepped away, all whilst anger continued to bubble inside Moira. But even with her mind, she couldn’t see a possible way that, with their own organisational alignments, they could ever be on even remotely friendly terms again.

“Moira O’Deorain…” She sighed, only to herself, “How pathetic this is the thing that gets the better of you?”

**Author's Note:**

> my friend's alternate title for this fic: "Mmmoist Moira Manages to Make Mercy Miserable for Many Moments"
> 
> another alternate title: "Many Miserable Misread Moments Managed Meticulously with Menace Methods Mentioned by Moira Masterfully to Mercy"
> 
> really offsets the angst doesn't it c':


End file.
